Follow the formal introduction of Winnipeg's art scene... to the world! We are thrilled to be showcased on a global stage at La Maison Rouge, leading art gallery in Paris, France, from June 22-September 24, 2011.
Read interviews with participating artists, view images of exhibited works, and follow along from an intern's perspective, as our hometown paints Paris red.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

So, I believe we left off here, where around the corner lies the room curated by Sigrid Dahle. She tries to create for us the subconscious of the Winnipeg artist, while describing with paintings, drawings, etchings, videos, posters, photographs, postcards, signs and books, a glimpse, for the unknowing visitor, our city wrought with spiritualism, protest, and passion bred by our vast province and rich cultural history.

Before entering the room, we see a self-portrait by Rosalie Favell, a Métis artist from Manitoba. She has placed herself in a Wizard of Oz scene, complete with Hudson Bay blanket, with our founding father Louis Riel, revolutionary for Métis rights, seen here as the wizard. She quotes the film in her title, "I awoke to found my spirit had returned", very similar to that of Louis Riel who in 1885 said, "My people will sleep for one hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back".

In the middle of the room, you will find our authentic psychoanalysis couch, yes used for real psychoanalysis, many years ago, and yes, reupholstered by yours truly. Sigrid has brought many books from Winnipeg ranging from historical references, to cartoons and artist catalogues. The visitor is welcome to sit and peruse.

Here in Darryl Nepinak's video, Zwei Indianer Aus Winnipeg, 2008, we get a contemporary look at the romanticization of First Nations by Europeans. Several camps exist in Europe where one can "play Indian", dressing up and carrying out many traditions of Canadian Aboriginals.

Lewis Benjamin Foote moved to Winnipeg from the East coast city of Newfoundland, taking photographs for decades documenting the development of the city of Winnipeg as well as photographing for the coroner. Many of Winnipeg's iconic archival photographs may be attributed to him.

Above are bison heads, before their disappearance as wild bovine roaming the prairies from over hunting. Today they are only farmed, occasionally, as we love our bison burgers.

In this little piece by the RAL, one thinks of another common problem in Manitoba. As we sit low in a basin carved out thousands of years ago by a glacier, flooding is a reoccurring issue. Though indigenous people never settled, Europeans weren't so wise. After hundreds of years of floods, a dyke was dug around the city of Winnipeg in 1969 to protect the city from the spring melt.

And, assumedly, the hill seen here would be the only hill found in the south of the province, Garbage Hill, where refuse was once dumped, and has now been covered in grass and provides hours of fun for tobogganers in the winter time!

Above is an engraving done by Bergman of early European fur traders with snowshoes to cross deep snow, pulled on toboggans, used to transport goods and animals by aboriginals, seen adopted here by the foreigners. Originally made with tree bark, they are now build with solid wood, plastic, or aluminium, and used by many, along with gravity, for thrills on small hills and river banks.

Various postcards of early Winnipeg. (from top down, the Hotel Fort Garry, the now destroyed Eaton's Building, the Winnipeg Auditorium, unknown, and the Canadian Pacific Railway Building) Look how nice they once looked!

Here we see origins of Winnipeg's theatrics, or perhaps cause of some of its social political trauma. To ensure support of the war effort, on February 19, 1942, actors dressed as Nazis moved to simulate a takeover, and give those in North America sample of the war machine, "over there". Citizens were warned in advance of the event, called 'If Day', which was quite aggressive, and not a joke. Aircraft flew overhead, sirens rang, swastikas were raised, the mayor was taken prisoner books were burned; realism was key.

In 1919, Winnipeg was home to the largest strike in North American History. On May 15, 1919, 20 000 people, basically the entire working force in Winnipeg went on strike. On Saturday June 22, 25 000 workers gathered at Market Square as mayor Charles Frederick Gray read the Riot Act. Tensions grew, and so he called in the Royal Northwest Mounted Police who entered beating the crowd with batons and shooting guns, killing two men, and giving this day its name, Bloody Saturday.

Yes, THE Winnie. This Winnipegger, and veterinarian soldier bought the orphaned bear from a trapper in neighboring province, Ontario, and named it after our lovely city. When serving in London, he donated it to their zoo, as he was called to duty in France. Young English Christopher Robin fell in love with Winnie, and visited him at the zoo quite often, naming his stuffed bear after Winnie. Father A.A. Milne then wrote the books, and, well, the rest is Disney!! I mean, History!!

Many immigrants arrived in Canada, using the Canadian Pacific Railway to cross the expanse. They "permanently settled in regions, relentlessly reproducing and appropriating land and other resources in the process".

As mentioned earlier, flooding is a common problem in the province of Manitoba. Currently, the province is experiencing one of the most devastating floods in decades. Thousands have lost homes, farm machinery and livestock, and will have to wait decades before fields and crops will be restored and able to produce yields of the past.

Dr. Thomas Glendennding Hamilton (1873-1935), Winnipeg School Board Trustee, Member of the Legislative Assembly, and President of the Manitoba Medical Association, began investigating psychic phenomena in 1921. Many frequented these seances, and with the help of many cameras, cheesecloth, and performances by talented mediums, they too contributed many photographs to Winnipeg's archives, some of which are also included in Guy Maddin's film, My Winnipeg.

Some would argue many Winnipegers, and Manitobans believe in ghosts and spiritualism. Manitoba can be translated from Cree as "where the Spirits live". Sigrid Dahle has conceptualized her own theory of the "Gothic Unconscious' which speculates that Winnipeg is haunted by the ghosts of a traumatic social history. This history includes the genocide of Indigenous peoples, the dispossession of the Métis, the hardships endured by Icelandic immigrants founding a new republic at Gimli (just north of Winnipeg), the arrivals of Russian Mennonites fleeing persecution and Jewish holocaust survivors in search of a safe haven, the exploitation of impoverished European and Asian immigrants (culminating in the spectacular 1919 Winnipeg General Strike) and the monumental struggles of women to attain full citizenship, just to name a few....

Surrealism was brought to the school by Robert Nelson (born 1925, Indianapolis, USA) who taught there from 1953-55. Surrealism is still prevalent today within the School of Art and by many of the artists who emerged from the program.

Diana Thorneycroft was taught by Ivan Eyre and went on to also work at the School of Art, teaching some of the My Winnipeg artists, such as Neil Farber and Marcel Dzama. Infact, most of the artists exhibited at La Maison Rouge's My Winnipeg attended the School of Art. Other artists in the My Winnipeg exhibition currently teach at the School of Art, for instance Sharon Alward and Cliff Eyland, and presumably many more artists who will attain international acclaim will also pass through its doors. One might trace a vein of similarities passed on from generation to generation, maintaining certain aesthetics and qualities leaning towards landscapes and surrealism...

And one last historical reminder from this third wall, our bloodsucking birds of summer, the Mosquito!! Here we see fogging with malathion (seen in earlier post), which continues today. Perhaps a little more discretely nowadays, with trucks prowling slowly through the night, avoiding those hippie neighbourhoods. Close the windows folks!

Kent Monkman, The Academy, 2011 (etching and aquatint on paper). (take a close look. sorry the photo doesn't do it justice, but satirical imagery and historical art references. brilliant!) His impressive diorama is just around the next corner, as he aims to re-write history and myth from a queer and Native perspective. (google him! he is a force...)

Miller is interested in what he refers to as "the Modernist Unconscious".

This speaks to our current state in the city. Widespread suburbia with homogenic malls in big empty spaces; parking lots. I believe this is why the photograph stands alone on the sole white wall in the room.

(the rest of the walls in the room have been painted grayish brown to match the ground we rest on, Manitoban clay, or as we call it, gumbo. This keeps our rivers brown, and gave us our name, as Winnipeg means muddy waters in Cree.)

And that concludes the second portion of the tour, Sigrid Dahle's room, There's No Place Like Home. Thanks for taking the time to look, and reading the brief history and explanations of just a few of the many images in the room. (trust me, it took much longer to post!).

1. Have you been to Paris, or shown in Paris before? (when...what...?)

Some years ago, I had the luxury of imbibing Paris for a month, with no particular agenda or responsibilities; that trip was all about stimulating and satisfying my intellectual curiosity and also my palate. Pure pleasure. Needless to say, I didn’t want to go home. This time I saw the police paddy wagons near the Bastille and the machine-toting security guards patrolling in front of the Pompidou and I read the newspapers as best as my poor French-language skills would allow. Clearly, there is a lot of Paris I’m not seeing. This time my ambivalence made it easier for me to return home.

2. How would you compare the art scene in Winnipeg to Paris?

Comparing city-based art scenes is like trying to compare molecular gastronomy with campfire cooking – it makes no sense. One city is a destination while the other is a point of departure (though ’m not sure which is which). Both cities are amenable to an abundance of interpretations. Artists work with whatever conditions, contexts, materials and opportunities are at hand. Some of the interpretations they produce are politically charged, some are sensually enticing, some are intellectually challenging and some are mind-numbingly banal (most are combinations of some the above). Anything can be found anywhere and everything can be found everywhere else.

3. What about Winnipeg's art community do you feel makes it unique?

No two art communities, or any other kinds of communities, for that matter, are identical. In that respect, all communities are (relatively) unique. We (the Winnipeg art community) are obsessed with trying to prove and account for our particular uniqueness – it’s so endearing!

4. When away from the Winnipeg winter, do you miss it?

No, probably because I’ve had very few opportunities for extended escape except by way of my imagination (I read a lot in winter. Hmm… and in spring, summer and fall as well).

5. What colour is your winter parka, and do you brave the season in sneakers, or prefer the warm comfort of boots?

I dress in camouflage – my hooded, down-filled, calf-length parka is the color of snow. I brave the season in fur-lined boots. I also wear fur-lined mitts hand-made by a furrier who moved to Winnipeg from Moscow as well as a black wool beret and a silk scarf from India. Consequently I rarely feel the cold. I guess that means I’m not very brave, after all.

The introduction description of Winnipeg....
L'introduction descriptif de Winnipeg...

Noam Gonick took these photographs before filming Stryker, 2004, a movie describing the life of young aboriginals in gangs in the North End. A stark reality usually ignored... These are just a few of the dozens and dozens of snapshots.

Here is Robert Houle's Reclining Ojibwa, 2006, (overlooking Paris) a piece commenting on the many aboriginals brought to Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries, on display like animals in a zoo. This created many romanticized conceptions, while meanwhile at home in Canada, efforts were being made to erase their culture and "civilize" the First Nations.

So that concludes the first portion of the tour, the initial hallway. The best is yet to come folks!!

And I will leave you with some images from the window display set up on a busy parisian street to create some buzz for the show at La Maison Rouge. Look familiar?!! Yes, they have recreated our somewhat dated, and no longer necessarily politcally correct Museum of Man & Nature diorama....